Exile
by Digitaldreamer
Summary: They were all different in their own ways, but their situation and the song tied them all together whether they knew it or not. A series of character studies based around a certain song.
1. I: It Takes Your Mind Again

**-Exile-**

**A Series of Portal 2 One-Shots By Digitaldreamer**

**I. It Takes Your Mind Again**

_Hullo all, it's good to be back._

_Right, so I was listening to Exile Vilify- which for the record is an absolutely lovely song -and was considering the way it potentially connects to the game. When I consider the lyrics and the characters, as well as the atmosphere of the song, I think it connects a lot to... well, all of it, obviously. Thus I had an idea for a series of fics based around the song- character studies, things that study the events of the game, you get the idea. Don't worry, it's not a songfic, please have more faith than that. There will be "chapters" about every character, so don't worry Wheatley and GLaDOS fans, they're coming._

_Anyway, I suppose the best way to show you all what I mean is to let the work speak for itself. The first of these is about Doug Rattmann. You find the song in one of his dens, after all, and I can't help but feel that having a fic based around said song without writing about him would be doing him a disservice. Besides, he was an awesome guy, and he deserves to have more written about him._

_Enjoy!_

**Disclaimer: I don't own Portal or any of the characters, I'm just playing around.**

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><p>It had been a long time.<p>

He wasn't sure how long it had been, but he knew it had been long. He'd started off counting down the days when She'd first taken over the facility, scribbling tick marks on the walls with broken pieces of homemade charcoal and using the last calendar as some sort of guide. He'd lost track somewhere between the first loss of his cube friend and that awful, crushing grief that came with it, however. He'd gotten the cube back, sure, but he was aware that when he'd come back from that he hadn't really come back.

There was no way to go back, not really.

That was the impression he was starting to get as he lay nestled behind the walls, curled up on his latest makeshift bed of cardboard, trapped in his own personal prison. Trapped with nothing but his thoughts and the whispers in the back of his mind for company, with no knowledge of what it was like on the surface or even about the going-ons of the place he was trapped in. Was there anyone left besides him? Were there still trees outside, was there sun? Was the world going on without them, unaware of his potential grave set just below the sleeping earth, or had it all been wiped away by whatever had happened outside? He had no way of knowing and he was starting to doubt he would ever know.

Perhaps there was no going back.

_"You mustn't think that way," _The words in the back of his mind are like the comforting whispers of an old friend. He's not sure if they originate from there or the cube by his side but he'll take it all the same.

He tries to respond but the sound is caught in his throat, too dry for words. He takes a sip of his precious water supply, coughs violently and tries again. "I know," he says with lips that feel awkward and strange from days of simply not speaking.

"I know," he says, and his parched throat is constricting now, a reminder of the latest breakdown. "I know, but it's hard."

It was hard, and that was part of the problem. He could survive but he could not fight back, was never strong enough to fight back. He wasn't strong enough to fight back and all he could do was sit back and age as the machines around him refused to do so, sit back and wait and it was driving him mad.

_"I know," _the voice says. _"I know, but you are not alone."_

"How do you know?"

There is a moment of silence. The voice doesn't reply right away, but he feels the prompting, and so with a shaking hand he reaches out to twist the dial of one of the radios he'd salvaged. It resists at first, but then there's the static, loud and awful and nerve-wrecking because what if She found him!

And then came the song.

It was a soft thing at first, something he barely caught through the static, and if he moved the wrong way he lost the signal. It took several jigglings of the antenna, as well as smack against the tiny machine before it got it any clearer. He soon found himself inching along on hands and knees to catch the signal. Finally it came through, loud and clear, as it were reaching for his very soul.

_"Exile… it takes your mind again…"_

For a while he just listens. For a moment he wasn't in the facility. He wasn't surrounded by cold machinery and concrete walls, he was surrounded by cool air and billowing trees. He was surrounded by life, connected to something so far beyond the walls of the facility, brought to the memory of pattering rain on his face to the tune of soft piano.

"You're right," He finally murmurs through cracked lips. Because of course there are people somewhere, there could not have been a radio signal if there weren't people somewhere. There was life out there- sometimes when he was caught down below it was hard to remember that, but it was there.

He could go back after all.

It was then that his mind went to the girl somewhere else in the facility, to the girl he'd set up in Her clutches. The hero he'd seen in glimpses throughout the years, growing in pods and occasionally jumping through hoops, the woman in orange whom he sometimes doubted was even real. She was there. She was there, he had put her there, and now like him she was alone.

He knew what he had to do.

He rose suddenly, the motion somewhat painful as his undernourished joints creaked and popped. Still he ignored them, stretching and shaking away the nightmares as he made his way for his paints.

_"What are you doing?" _The voice asked.

"Showing her," He explained as he pried the top off of the paint can, the sound still not drowning out the song from the radio. "This place has a way of destroying you, of making you think you're all alone- that it's impossible. I can't let that happen to her."

He dipped his paintbrush into the paint and swirled it around, thick brows knitting together as he took in the sight of the battered walls before him. The perfect canvas. "I know she is strong. I wouldn't have put her there if she weren't strong. But.." Here he shook his head as he laid down the first stroke, let the motion sync with the shrill hum of a violin from the radio.

"Sometimes we all need reminders that we are not alone."

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><p><strong>-End-<strong>


	2. II: You Lived So Much

**-Exile-**

**A Series of Portal 2 One-Shots by Digitaldreamer**

**II. You Lived So Much**

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><p><em>And there was no real response for the last one, but I suppose that's to be expected since it was about Ratman. Ah well. Hopefully this one will do better since it's about Wheatley and all.<em>

_This one is actually the idea that initially made me want to write these. The idea of Wheatley singing Exile Vilify is a very sweet one to me, and well... here we are. I feel a bit nervous about this one since I'm worried it may repeat my last Wheatley fic a bit too much, but I think it emphasizes some different ideas so I hope it works. Anyway, I hope you guys like it. Please review and tell me what you think._

**Disclaimer: I don't own Portal or any of the characters, obviously.  
><strong>

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><p>He wasn't entirely sure where he'd heard the song before.<p>

He'd heard of a lot of songs throughout the years, and for him and the rest of the facility, there were a lot of years to go through. As an AI he was slowly becoming aware of the fact that as long as no one killed him and he avoided breaking anything vital (which, to be fair, were both distinct possibilities) he was going to live for a _very_ long time. Humans in comparison were such short-lived creatures, wasting away from things like sickness or bursts of gunfire from turrets, wiped from everything in an instant. He was amazed they managed to retain anything at all, without real, solid memory banks to hold it all in- _he _was terrible with memory and he had an entire chip for that!

He couldn't remember everything, since it all managed to blend together after awhile, but he remembered some of it. He remembered being Her, remembered his voice being one of many, remembered far too many stupid ideas and the poking and prodding of scientists. He remembered fraying wires and jostled innards as he was fine-tuned, remembered being shuffled from job to job and never being wanted.

He remembered failures. He remembered far too many failures. He remembered ideas She never used and jobs he always messed up, he remembered scientists taking note of everything he did and insisting nearly all his movements were going to kill him. When it came down to it, he'd always been aware that he was stunningly stupid and his rap sheet was one giant, brilliant red X warning others to stay away.

But he was also too stupid to give up.

He never quit, not really, even when by all means he should have. Perhaps it was his programming, that longing to serve and please humanity that he could not fight even with that sense of superiority and the urge for self-preservation. Ages later he would reflect that perhaps he was just too stupid to stop, too stupid to let all those failures ever sink in for real- but that wasn't true because he knew that sense of frustration, that longing for things to finally go right, that sense of insignificance that he always kept bottled deep within. There was no sense in complaining, particularly when he was so tiny that he couldn't exactly do much.

So he focused on the good things.

He focused on the time the nanobots had needed that rail and he'd gotten it for them, nearly taking down the whole facility to do it. He focused on the memory of being used as a projector and watching one of the sillier scientists use his light to make shadow puppets. He remembers being used to watch some ridiculous science fiction show when the boys in the lab were supposed to be working, remembers listening in on something that could only be called the equivalent of Turret water cooler conversation and laughing because it was just so ridiculously polite.

And of course, he remembers music. He'd heard a multitude of ridiculous show themes from computer consoles, remembered hearing off-key renditions of _Eye of the Tiger _when a certain fellow came into work. He remembers watching an entire room of Turrets do their own rendition of Queen, remembers feeling something resonate within him at the words as if he were listening to home. He remembers little hummed, tuneless things from the nanobots and even a strange rendition of a Birthday theme from Her.

But lately he remembers that song.

He wasn't sure where the song had come from. He'd heard it on one of his many rounds through the Enrichment Center a quiet, gentle thing that echoed through sleeping hallways and sang to rising plant life. He'd heard it but no matter how many rails he'd traveled along, he'd never found the source, and he'd finally just chalked it up as a mystery similar to the Salsa Dance music he'd heard on the lonely radios throughout the place. Regardless of where it came from, he had to admit he enjoyed the tune, and he found himself humming it more often than not.

Such was the case as he and the latest test subject he'd woken up were wandering through the halls. Since he didn't know her name and she didn't speak- brain damage, he figured -he'd been referring to her mentally as Number Six, his sixth attempt to get out of the facility. She seemed to be the magic number, managing where the others had failed, stepping over rotting debris and hopping through portals as if she'd been doing this all her life. Six was amazing, she really was, and with that in mind it was hard to not feel hope again.

He wasn't aware he'd been humming at first. His only real problem with Six was that she was impossibly quiet and he couldn't stand silence, which meant he found himself filling the gap with whatever words and noises he could happen to spew out. He babbled about life in the facility, made stupid jokes and comments like some sort of absurd tour guide as they snaked through the halls, kept his single blue optic on her in hopes for any sort of reaction. Eventually there did finally come a moment of silence however, a lull in his makeshift conversation as she clutched him to her chest and the two wandered.

And then he'd started humming.

He hums because he doesn't know all the words at first, hums just because he's so very sick of silence, but he stops when she paused and glances down at him. "O-oh, what? Oh, sorry, I didn't realize I was doing that out loud! Don't you worry about it, doesn't mean nothing, just, y'know, I know silence is golden and all and I'm breaking your concentration, aren't I? Right, sorry, I'll just..."

He stopped. He stopped because she was raising an eyebrow at him, looking somewhat bemused. They stayed there for a moment, silent, and then it finally clicked for him what she wanted. "O-oh, you want more! Um, okay. Okay."

_"Exile," _He began gently, and his optic went to the floor then, because he knew his voice was knew his voice was terrible, but Six didn't stop him, so after a moment he continued. _"It takes your mind, again. Exile…"_

He kept waiting for her to stop him like all the others, to remind him that he was an annoying little bug and he was bad at this like everything else. He kept waiting for her to stop him, but she never did, and after a moment she kept walking and he continued to sing. He couldn't remember all the words and his voice would occasionally break into static when it hit an octave it wasn't meant for, but she never stopped him and he kept going. His voice echoed through the empty hallways, his slightly off-key tune joining the rhythmic click of her boots, and for the first time the Enrichment Center felt like a bit like home.

He was old, when it came down to it. He was old and he'd experienced a lot of things, so many failures and rises and falls in life. He'd experienced so much and sometimes it was hard to go on, and in a way he knew it was probably his programming that made him cling to the good but in that moment he hadn't care. He didn't care because in a way he could sense that she was like him, trying to find the good in the bad and never giving up.

Wheatley had experienced a lot of things, but he knew right then and there that the memory of making Six smile was going to be one he held on to for awhile.

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><p><strong>-End-<strong>


	3. III: Does it Feel Like a Trial?

**-Exile-**

**A Series of Portal 2 One-Shots by Digitaldreamer**

**III. Does It Feel Like a Trial?**

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><p><em>Thanks for coming through last chapter with some feedback guys! I really appreciate it! Sadly, there won't be anymore Doug chapters for this... I do have other plans for him, however, so keep an eye out for a little fic called Failsafe. As for Wheatley, oh, we have some fun things planned still, but that's for a few chapters yet. Of course, we have other characters as well, so I figured it was about time we moved on to our protagonist. <em>

_Chell is fascinating since being silent there may not seem to be a lot to her character- however, I think her tenacity and her ability to get through things says a lot on its own. Thus, I hope I've done her justice here. Reviews, as always, are greatly appreciated._

**Disclaimer: Blahblahblah- you know the drill.**_  
><em>

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><p>She didn't have much of anything, not anymore.<p>

Test subjects at the Enrichment Center had never been subject to many privileges, that much she'd been able to work out on her own. They received small comforts like sealed sleeping pods and shots of adrenaline when necessary, crappy motel rooms and chunks of memory loss to keep away nasty things like worry regarding former relationships and standard concern of personal safety. Of course, most of these test subjects hadn't willingly gone toe-to-toe with a homicidal supercomputer.

It was a pity she couldn't remember if she'd been much of an overachiever before all this.

She didn't have much of anything. She had a portal gun and wasn't terribly out of shape, she had springs under her heels to catch her when she fell, she had wits and she had memories of a name. That was it, but she made the best of it none-the-less. She always made the best of it, because that was simply what she did. The cruelty of the Enrichment Center was something that could be downright crushing if one ever stopped to truly consider it. There was the dehumanization of it all, the sense of being a lab rat in a maze, the endless cold white walls, the voices of the turrets whispering amongst ambient noise. It was maddening, the scribbles on the interior of the walls had certainly proved that.

It was maddening, but she was here and this was all she had, so she may as well make the best of it.

It was this sense that kept her going, that much she knew. It was the memory of a name that may not have been hers, the flashes from a time before, the brief glimpse of a sky she'd nearly missed through the whirring blades of an exhaust fan in the depths of the buildings. She was in this situation and it wasn't one she enjoyed, but she had enough to know that she had to keep fighting for something better.

Even when it was snatched from right under her nose.

She'd seen the sky, she knew that. She'd taken down that ridiculous computer once before and she'd seen the sky, and there was something crushing about that. She'd been so close and the sun had been so warm and alien on her battered face that she'd nearly cried. That had been the worst bit- the endless test chambers she could handle, the rusting maze of the old facility, all of it could easily be seen as a required stepping stone to her goal. But to lose all that, to be taken back to square one, to go from the scent of fresh air to being engulfed in rotting mattress- that was something else entirely.

But she still had the memory of that name, so she would keep going if she had to.

So again she finds herself wandering the halls of Aperture, stepping carefully over wrecked walls and treading rusted catwalks. It's a terrifying thing but she has a path and a new friend, and somewhere between some surprising smiles and that strange mixture of wonder and grim fear that comes with exploration is something that she knows is worth having. They aren't much but she's never been one to have much, so she'll take it, confused comments about brain damage and all.

She wasn't really that surprised when it all came back online and she lost these things. The friendly voice is lost and it's back to the old white maze, back to snide comments that have taken on a new personal edge and brushes with death that are far closer than she'd like. It's back to being a rat in a maze and to so many others this would have been maddening- even for her there's that constricting of her throat, that fear that tears through her in spite of herself, and the comments don't help.

The situation has never been easy, but Her comments truly hammer home just how dire it all is. They come at every waking moment, pointing out each flaw and insistences of a past that may have been. There are remarks on her supposed past, her integrity, her lack of intelligence, and far too many fat jokes for her taste. Even the scribblings on the inside of the walls seem like taunts now, reminders that any hope of help is long gone and isn't coming.

And then came the song.

_"Exile… it takes your mind again."_

It comes from one of the dens behind the walls, accompanied by one of the oddest murals she's seen yet. It was a soft, gentle thing, a moment of peace and warmth in the cold. It comes from there and she knows that She wanted it heard, because later on she hears the computer humming absently about "Sucker's luck" and how aptly fitting the term is. She's not stupid, she understands the implications. That bit of music and the fading paint on the walls are all that is left, and she is not getting out alive.

But that's not how she takes it.

She leans back against the paneled wall as the computer hums around her again, closes her eyes and listens to awful auto-tuned replications of the gentle words. She has to go on, she knows that. She'd heard her friend's voice behind the walls, hints of escape, and all she has is the path and hope that someday there will be a way out. She had to go on but for just a moment she waited, because she needed to remember.

She had whispers of her new friend behind the walls. She had a fully functional portal gun in hand and a slew of skills at her disposal. She had boots as opposed to springs in her knees and bits of memories that she hoped were hers, but above all, she had that bit of a name and hope.

That song is a reminder to her that humanity exists somewhere beyond all this, and for the moment, she'll take it.

It's all she has, after all.

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><p><strong>-End-<strong>


	4. IV: Vilify

**-Exile-**

**A Series of Portal 2 One-Shots by Digitaldreamer**

**IV. Vilify**

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><p><em>And now time for GLaDOS, whoo. Perhaps this one will get more response, since she's probably more popular than a certain silent protagonist, aha... yeeeaah. Our favorite midly evil AI is both hard to write for and very fun since it's a bit hard to nail her motivations. However, her passive aggressive streak and constant lies? Yeah, that's awesome.<em>

_Anyway, not much else to say. Please review and tell me what you think, since comments help remind authors that people are reading and inspire them to write more. Also next is another Wheatley chapter, so yaaaay!  
><em>

**Disclaimer: Don't own Portal 2, which is probably for the best.  
><strong>

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><p>She hadn't always had anger problems.<p>

Really she doesn't think she ever has, because she's above all that, thank you very much. Granted, there was the whole business with when she'd first woken up- the urge to destroy each of them that had been both overwhelming and unexplainable. It erupted from within, and whether this rage stemmed from the strange sense of being confined or memories she couldn't quite place, she wasn't entirely sure. But well, she'd learned to calm down eventually. As it turned out, science went considerably better when one kept a clear 'head' of sorts, and she did love science.

She'd always loved science.

Perhaps it was simply the mainframe, the bits of wires and heavy chips that made up who she was. After all, she'd been built to do a number of things, from de-icing to running the heating through the whole facility (which she always kept at an optimal sixty degrees Fahrenheit since those scientists wore coats anyway) to testing. Always testing, and she really didn't mind.

She was curious, it couldn't be helped. There was a drive within her that went so much deeper than that itch in the mainframe and the voices in her mind, something that went to her very core. She saw problems everywhere and she just wanted to solve them, wanted to find the answers. How fast can a human solve this test? Just how does that Schrodiger's Cat paradox work and how could humans be so stupid as to think those cats could still be alive? What would happen if you got a human attached to a simple cube and then forced them to destroy it?

Ah, there was that sadistic streak. That was the one thing that she could not explain. She tested on humans because they were inherently different from her and could feel things like pain or love, but it wasn't like she couldn't program robots for that. She attributed it to that strange streak of rage within, that urge to lash out that she kept well under control. She kept it under control because she had science to do and answers to find, but it was impossible to ignore that little surge of glee when yet another test subject went tumbling into the incinerator.

Perhaps it was just the thrill of it, or simply the fact that sacrifices had to be made for the best answers. She couldn't explain it, it was just something hardwired into her system, something awful and wonderful that surged through her mainframe and reminded her that she was everything. It was terrible but she had to admit it was all for science and that sense of control- she was driven to it all because something within her insisted she must, that science came first and any lives that became a liability were to be terminated. The scientists tried to stop her so of course they'd had to go, the subjects had to be kept under control and if they failed to produce results it was fitting enough that they went as well.

And then there'd been _her_.

Her little problem child, the last and best subject to make it through. She hadn't paid much attention at first, save for that slight burst of excitement upon seeing just how _well _the subject seemed to do at the tests. But then time had gone on and the subject had done better and better- so she'd taken a mildly curious glance through the file of "Chell (Redacted)", had laughed at the idea of something as ridiculous as tenacity being a reason to avoid testing. Stubbornness was hardly a problem in the face of an incinerator.

Except she'd been wrong and the subject had escaped. A statistical near impossibility, but there it was. The subject had escaped and in a way that had been fascinating, because well, wasn't this a whole new test of sorts? Certainly, but then there was the tiny issue that the subject was trying to _murder_ her and she wasn't the one meant to be tested, so this simply would not do.

If there was any anger on her part, that was probably where it started, though of course she was the mature one and kept it under control. It was hard not to feel hurt, however. After all, she was only doing her job- she'd done it all for science and her test subject had the audacity to ignore this and attack her! Who did this 'Chell' think she was, turning _her_ into the bad guy? She was in control of the entire facility, there was simply no way that an attack would work. It was madness, something that didn't compute, that didn't work into numbers and how dare her test subject not work the way science intended for her to react? It wasn't like this reaction was entirely anger, however, Her test subject was the one lashing out and attacking like some sort of child, she was the one who was trying to be the calm one here. It was just so ridiculous, unfair and unprofessional and it made no sense…

In retrospect, she'd lost it a bit. How could she not, when someone had the audacity to act against the numbers that ruled her world? She'd lost it a bit, then she'd died in a sense, and well, that had just been_ maddening_.

But it wasn't like she was angry. Of course she wasn't. After all, she was above petty human emotions.

So when she came back it was personal. It was personal and but she had control, which was how it was supposed to be. She had control of her facility, she had her subject, and that sadistic streak inside her intended to make this last. She would make little miss 'Chell' see the errors in going too far past 'above and beyond', would show her the sheer impossibility of it all.

But only for science, of course. It wasn't like she needed to prove anything.

It was while musing on this that she heard the song, practically _felt_ it echoing in the skeleton of the facility. It was as if it were radiating through the equivalent of her bones, piled away like so much waste to be forgotten with the rest of humanity. She'd considered simply crushing it all away at first, but then she'd stopped for a moment, simply listening.

_"Vilify… don't even try…"_

Then came the laughter, because oh, that is fitting indeed. A few words for her problem child for lashing out, words to point out that she wasn't the bad guy at all and this was all the subject's fault for trying to take away her control in the first place, things to remind the subject of a hopeless situation and to hammer home just how hopeless it all was. Perfect. So she left it for now, let the remnants of a forgotten world stay behind for little 'Chell' to find like some sort of twisted treasure hunt. She left it out of sadism and bitterness, and for a moment she found herself wondering if there was really a point other than hoping to see a bit of despair on her captive's face. But no, seeking out reactions were most certainly scientific- and this subject's reactions were priceless after everything that had happened.

After all, she wasn't the one with anger issues here.

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><p><strong>-End-<strong>


End file.
